Slacker Brings Streaming Radio to Your Blackberry Pearl
Blackberry Pearl users are seldom known to be lazy or “slackers”. Business people who are keeping everything organized in the ultimate handheld device. Now, Blackberry Pearl users are instantly able to pull up that latest corporate memo, just about anyone?s contact information, all of their appointments for the next 7 months and now, a custom designed streaming radio station on their phones.
With Pandora failing to provide Blackberry applications, many have turned to Slacker.com which just might be even better. Pandora is another company pandering to the hype of the iPhone rather than looking the considerably larger market share owned by Research In Motion. I still don’t understand why it’s so difficult for these software companies to see the mistake they’re making by ignoring the Blackberry.
Slacker.com has a very well made application you can load onto your Blackberry Pearl and stream your favorite music. This is done through your mobile provider, so make sure you’ve signed up for an unlimited data plan. The Slacker.com application is free to download and use, but you will have to listen to some commercials infrequently after the initial 7 day trial period. Don’t worry, you won’t be cut off or billed after the 7 days, Slacker will just drop in a quick commercial once in a while (not even close to the amount you’ll get from your local radio stations). It’s a small price to pay for an amazing application.
In a similar fashion to what Pandora does (but better in my opinion), Slacker helps you build a custom music station and then fine tunes what songs it plays based on your feedback. As you’re listening, you can make an artist a “favorite” or even ban an artist from that station. If you love country but hate Garth Brookes songs, it’s not a problem. Slacker has also employed the expertise of some music aficionados to build about 100 different stations. You can even fine tune these as you listen. I prefer to create my own custom blend for each mood I’m in.
I discovered another very fun feature with Slacker on my drive home today. As I was listening to one of my custom stations, Slacker started playing a song I liked by an artist I didn’t know. So, with a couple of clicks I was able to bring up a complete artist bio, album review and even all of the album artwork. All while I continued to listen and without leaving the application.
If you’re thinking you love Slacker so far, you ain’t seen nothing yet. The best part of your Slacker experience is something called station caching. This allows you to download an entire station to your MicroSD memory card for use later when you may not have very good phone coverage. If your morning commute has a few drop off points where you always loose coverage this will work great. Also for those flights where you have to turn off the signal on your phone. You will still have your music. With the premium plan you’re not limited to caching stations only, but can also cache individual songs, allowing you to create extremely customized stations you can take virtually anywhere.
For the typical music listener, you can get by just fine with the free Slacker service. But, if you’re a music fiend who can’t get enough, you’ll want to spend the extra $3.99 per month for the premium plan. That’s not bad for a massive music library that learns your likes and dislikes and serves it all up 100% commercial free. This also gives you that ability to store single songs and skip as many songs as you want while they’re playing. Not bad for, what comes to under $50 per year.
If you’re used to Pandora and like the idea of giving a thumbs up or down to your music while it’s playing, this will take it to the next level. Slacker calls this “song requests” and it will give you the opportunity to go in and tell it exactly what individual songs you like and don’t like before it even starts playing. The free version has a limit to the songs you can choose. Upgrade and it’s wide open to pick and choose all you like. You’ll also be able to advance past an unlimited number of songs as they’re playing.
Blackberry builds something called the “Stereo Music Gateway”. This is a device that you wire into the back of your home audio system and then it connects via Bluetooth to your phone. Combine that with Slacker and you have a virtually unlimited library of music to play through your home stereo. Of course, I love Slacker in the car, plugged into a cassette adaptor or FM transmitter through my car stereo. If you’re doing this on long trips I’d highly recommend a batter charger for in the car.
You can download Slacker right now by pointing your mobile browser directly at www.slacker.com. If you’re not near a computer, don’t worry, you can register on your phone and be up and running in no time. Of course, you can log into your Slacker account via your high speed home connection and build all of your custom stations. That way they’ll be waiting for you the next time you fire up Slacker.
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